HELENA -- Gov. Brian Schweitzer said Friday it's time to consider buying out the leases of ranchers who graze cattle near Yellowstone National Park, before the state loses its brucellosis-free status.

Schweitzer spoke at a meeting of the state Environmental Quality Council.

He said about 740 cattle graze in what he calls "mixing zones," areas where bison leave the park in winter and cattle later graze.

He wants to explore a deal that would pay cattlemen not to graze their animals in those places. Federal funding might be available, Schweitzer said.

The present federal and state management plan allows for the hazing of migrating bison, back into Yellowstone, and for the slaughter of animals because of concerns about brucellosis. Many park bison have the disease, and ranchers fear those wandering could spread it to cattle in Montana -- a fear that critics of the management plan say has never been proven in the wild. Some elk in the region also have brucellosis, which can cause cows to abort.

The management plan does not do enough to protect the Montana livestock industry's brucellosis-free status, Schweitzer said. That status is among the industry's marketing advantages.

"If we continue what we are doing today (for bison management), we lose our ... status," Schweitzer said. In signing the joint management plan more than five years ago, "we got nothing," he said.

He also said Montana's expenditures for hazing bison and for hauling the captured to slaughter houses are not the best use of money. Sending bison to slaughter costs about $200,000 a year and hazing costs the state $750,000, he said.

In its most recent estimate, the National Park Service said Yellowstone has about 3,500 bison.

Those grazing in areas no longer supporting cattle would be in those places only part of the year and would be hazed back into the park seasonally, Schweitzer said.

He indicated ranchers unwilling to sell their leases ultimately could be forced to sell them, but "we're hoping we don't get to that."

An administrator at the park said lease buyouts are one of the phases in the present management plan.

"That's something that was envisioned," Tom Olliff, acting chief of the Yellowstone Center for Resources, said in a telephone interview. "It just hasn't happened yet." Acquiring grazing rights would fall to the state, not the Park Service, he said.

Rep. Debby Barrett, R-Dillon, a member of the Environmental Quality Council, said Schweitzer's proposal matches that of environmental groups, including one established by media magnate Ted Turner, who raises bison on his Montana property. Such groups "have a different agenda than we do," Barrett said.

Schweitzer said consideration of the proposal should not become political and added, "There's a whole lot of people out there who would like to polarize this."

Republican Sen. Dan McGee, of Laurel, said the Democratic governor deserves "full marks for having the guts to stand up there" and press for a different approach. Rep. Jim Peterson, R-Buffalo, a rancher and former executive vice president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association, said the plan has been discussed before, but said it probably merits a fresh look.

The Buffalo Field Campaign, an activist group that considers the management plan flawed, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Friday.

Schweitzer said he sees bison hunting, reinstated in 2005, as part of future bison management. Hunters killed 40 animals during a three-month period that began Nov. 15.

Schweitzer said he has talked to livestock groups about buyouts and plans further discussions with them and other Montanans.

"We're just laying this on the table," he said. "We haven't got all the answers."

On the Net:

Yellowstone National Park: http://www.nps.gov/Yell